


Fool (If you think it's over)

by tusenskona



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mentions of Other Humans, Post-Subcon Freeze, Pre-Canon, i can have a little sad snatcher. as a treat, no beta i am just a coward, so you can see where i drew some inspiration.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusenskona/pseuds/tusenskona
Summary: Sometimes you have to take the first step in the aftermath. Unfortunately it brings forth too many consequences.
Relationships: Snatcher & Subcon Dwellers (A Hat in Time)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so theres this subcon forest lore... (i say this as i beat up vanessa)

_This isn’t Subcon._

The prince traversed the barely visible path from the manor out to the nearby village. He barely recognized it, what with all the ice pillars being raised from the ground, and somehow smaller ones were still growing from whatever was left of the ground.

_This can’t be Subcon._

Touching a purple hand onto one of the child ice statues, he immediately recoiled at the sight of his hand. Oh yeah, he still has to get used to that. Even with the mask covering their face, he could see the terror in the child eyes. In the children behind them. It was like a sick version of a movie being paused.

He felt sick to his stomach seeing this. But he couldn’t escape it, wherever he turned he saw more dead citizens, more people attempting to run, and those that didn’t attempted to protect their young. Of course, the protection was all in vain, as the ice just continued spreading.

_Is anyone even left?_

_What a silly thought, little prince, of course no one’s left. Don’t delude yourself like this, you’re better than that._

Tears rolled down his cheek, dropping on the ground below. It melted the snow, but he barely noticed it. Sobbing was heard through the clearing, howling even louder than the winds of the witch queen who caused this tragedy. As he was crying his heart out to the crowd of ice statues, he felt something touch his side.

As he looked at the ghosts with similar masks to the children, he skimmed his brain to remember what they were called.

_{Dwellers, as a category of spirits, were relatively uncommon. You cannot become a dweller unless you died young and that death was so traumatic that you can’t find your way to the afterlife. Once you become a dweller, you’re stuck like that until another ghost of higher ranking disposes of you.}_

**_He would not do such a thing to his subjects._ **

The dwellers that he saw all let out a hum. A hum that, were he alive, he should not understand. But he did.

_Prince-scared-cold-socold-help_   
_Queen-snow-ice-red-help_   
_Prince-cold-ghost- **help**_

_“No, little ones. I’m so sorry, little ones.”_

He could only plead and beg for forgiveness as he was surrounded by hundreds of dwellers, as if they were all the judge, jury and executioner of his incompetence as their prince.


	2. Chapter 2

The snowfall had stopped.

The prince looked up at the sky, telling the dwellers that the clouds would for sure part way for some sunlight, but they didn’t. He had an unreadable expression on his face as the dwellers were whizzing around him, trying to make sense of the situation.

 _Prince-snow-sun-where?_ They had asked him, and they hadn’t gotten a response yet. He just kept staring up, deep in thought and looking terrified. After what felt like an eternity, he pursed his lips and looked away from the sky.

A red dweller with a green mask asked him the same question yet again, and he flinched. Then, with a shaky smile, he said:

_“It’ll come out soon, it’s probably just shy.”_

The dwellers, content with that explanation because they didn’t know any better, radiated positive energy towards each other, giving hope about the future, not really giving any attention to the princes deteriorating smile.

The snowfall may have stopped now, but the prince didn’t keep his hopes up over it staying that way long enough for him to melt the snow and frost that laid across the whole kingdom. They had barely found a spot with no snow, and even that spot had been snowed over a couple of days ago. Maybe he should go back to the source and stop the Queen from continuing this sudden winter.

_But who would take care of the dwellers? They certainly can’t take care of themselves, not yet at least._

The prince rose from the now wet patch of grass, to try to climb a nearby tree to at least see how far the devastating cold had reached. Maybe knowing the exact scope of damage would help him in reclaiming the kingdom?

Forgetting that he was a ghost for what seemed like the 5th time, he started climbing the tree, and had just reached the crown of the tree when his face was hit by a snowflake.

_No. No no no no no!_

He bolted up to the top and the sight of another massive snowstorm nearing their location made his stomach drop. They can’t salvage what’s left, they have to leave. They were just at the border to a nearby desert kingdom, and if the snow didn’t reach long past the border, he could warn the other kingdoms about what’s going on.

He jumped down from the tree to inform the dwellers, not noticing that he didn’t land on his feet but floated just above the ground.

_“We have to go, little ones. We can’t stay.”_

Trusting their prince, the dwellers followed him for another hour until they suddenly stopped.

_“Little ones, what is it? Why have you stopped?”  
Prince-pain-forward  
“Pain? Has there been an injury?”  
Hurt-hurt- **pain**_

****

He grabbed some of the dwellers, checking over if they had any visible problems. There was none visible to his eye. He looked over the rest of the dwellers, the snow starting to fall harsher.

_“Where is the pain?”  
Head-pain- **HURT**_

Their cry for help was akin a scream to his ears, shaking him to the core. He had just passed the legal border, nearing one of the surrounding kingdoms toll gates, but the dwellers seemingly couldn’t step over that boundary.

_Silly little prince, didn’t you remember? Dwellers can’t leave their home._


	3. Chapter 3

The dwellers were unusually quiet when they all went back to the desolated village. They usually whizzed about while talking to each other, but the prince’s sour mood made them all edge away from him in both sadness and fear.

They were trying their best to discuss in whispers, like how they did when they were alive, but they didn’t know that the prince could still hear them talking. Dwellers haven’t developed a need to whisper among other ghosts, so these dwellers couldn’t whisper even if their afterlife depended on it.

He ignored their chatting in favour of scouting out the area, anything to keep his mind occupied. This time, his scouting yielded results.

People outside the borders have arrived at the forest, no doubt to search what was going on. It seemed that they weren’t well dressed for the weather, seeing as some had huddled together, and he cannot blame them. Subcon was used to humid climates with heavy rainfall, not magic ice-cold winters.

And they were pointing at him.

_Oops, silly prince. You better run!_

With a squeak of surprise, he turned around and projected to the dwellers that they must run, for there are people in the forest and they don’t take kindly to spirits. Most of them either hid behind the nearby trees or bolted up above to any of the few still standing tree houses. Seeing as they were out of sight, he turned back around to face the people he saw.

“You! You’re the first human we’ve seen all trip. What happened… “They had shouted before they arrived, seeing they weren’t really talking to a human.  
 _“Oh thank the Goddesses you’re here! The Queen has gone mad and killed everyone!”_  
“But… _If_ she killed everyone, how are you here?”  
 _“I’m… not? She killed me as well.”  
_ “But you obviously haven’t passed on. You need to pass on.”  
 _“I can’t! Not unless the Queen is gone for good!”_  
  


The humans stopped in their interrogation and turned around to whisper among themselves. _Now if only the dwellers could do that_ , the prince mused to himself, but was quickly pulled out of his thoughts as the sound of a gunshot rang through the air and a feeling of a bullet phased through his head.

He looked up in shock and before he even managed to utter a single syllable he was surrounded by the dwellers, their thoughts only being ones of animosity and _how- **dare** -you-hurt-prince_. With the sheer number of them being enough to scare off the ones with enough energy to stand up, the prince went over to the humans huddling together and noticed that they were not alive anymore.

He pushed them over, intending to carry them off a ravine or something, and realized he grabbed onto something that definitely wasn’t supposed to be grabbed because it was soft and warm and felt like floating liquid. He pulled it out of the humans and stared at it for a good while before showing it to the dwellers, pointing at it as to ask them what it was.

They didn’t give any conclusive answers except that it was some sort of soul, one that definitely belonged to one of the humans he pushed over. He was about to at least _try_ to put it back, but something in him told him not to do it. The same voice calling him _a silly prince_ once again called him to _eat_ it. Not one to ignore his subconscious, he plopped it into his mouth, and felt his powers _surge,_ melting any snow in a 10-meter radius. The amount of snow melting doubled when he ate the second soul.

His smile widended until it was cheek to cheek. This was it! He doesn’t need to defeat Vanessa; he just needs to eat souls to keep the snow at bay!


	4. Chapter 4

A year had passed since Subcon froze over.

The prince had taken to defend his forest from any intruders he could fight, and thus humans have kept away from the forest, spreading rumours about something haunting it since the forest froze over. Well I wasn’t something incorrect, so he didn’t deny anything.

He had managed to sew some bodies for the dwellers out of leftover plush in the villages scattered around the former kingdom, thus making willing dwellers be corporeal again.

The forest’s borders have all been thawed, but with using fire magic to keep out ice magic, had tainted the fauna. The trees were now a dark purple, with magical flowers sprouting out wherever they had decided to camp out. The sky was eternally dark, which the residents assumed was an effect of the Queen’s magic still lingering, ready to burst at any moment.

During the year, the prince noted that his body had morphed beyond recognition. His legs were no longer legs, but a tail not unlike the dwellers. His fingers had fused after three months of eating souls and were now just two claws. His features had all melted together to form a long noodle-like body, again, not unlike how the dwellers looked.

He pretty much looked like a purple dweller, and he welcomed it.

During another scouting mission, he noticed a body, going around in one of the treehouses. Putting the scouting mission aside, the prince floated up to where he had located the body and was ready to dispose of it. Though when he well arrived, he noticed how the body was _different_ from any ordinary human body.

The skin was blue, with a head shaped like a crescent moon.  
 _And it wore his old clothes._

Curiosity turned to confusion.   
_Who is this person?_

It seemed like him arriving had triggered some form of alarm, for the body turned around, and the prince could see the features on the face, hopefully to recognize it. But all that hopefulness flew out the window when he saw that the facial features was of _his old dweller mask_.

_“Who are you, and why are you wearing that mask.”_ It was more of a statement than a question.  
 _“Oh! Hello there!”_ The person exclaimed in pure joy, _“I’m Moonjumper, and I used to be your corpse!”_ The person – Moonjumper, reached forward with a hand. _“You must be The Soul Snatcher that used to inhabit this body!”_

The prince recoiled in discomfort.

_“Excuse me?”  
“You’re a Soul Snatcher, right?” _Moonjumper leaned forward. _  
“No, not that, the other thing.”_ The prince leaned further back. _  
“This is your corpse! At least I’m sure it is, your energy signature is identical to the residue in this body.”  
“Why are you possessing my corpse?”_

Moonjumper paused and stood up straight. They dropped their air of joy, and the prince felt like he was in the cellar again with how the mood dropped.  
 _“…It’s hard to explain, but I’m not doing it on purpose if that’s what you’re thinking. I can’t leave the body willingly.”  
“What do you need to do to leave the body?”  
“I do not know. I was just hovering about over you and then Poof!” _They made an explosion motion with their hands, _“I was stuck in here.”_

Wait. If Moonjumper was hovering around him, why didn’t he see them? They’re a spirit, surely, he would’ve sensed them.

It was like they could hear his thoughts because they coughed as to clear their throat, and went, in that exact tone the prince had heard for months:

**_“Silly prince, it’s me.”_ **

The prince’s facial features went from uncomfortable disgust to pure shock.

_“I have to leave.”_ He spoke quickly before diving away from the treehouse, not listening to the sound of protest that Moonjumper let out to attempt to stop them. He went back to the outskirts of the camp and stared at it. That revelation made him anxious, he couldn’t be near that… that **corpse stealer!**

He whispered to himself, flexing his claws in agitation.  
 _“Maybe the name Soul Snatcher wasn’t that bad…”_


End file.
